My End of Year Show – Sweeney Todd

Earlier this year I wrote about my first experience of theatre sound design and mixing. Hard as it is to believe, my time as a student has come to an end and I’ve just finished my final show, Sweeney Todd.

We were divided into two groups and assigned roles on either Sweeney Todd or The Witches of Eastwick. This was dependent on the proposals we submitted, stating our case for wanting to work on a particular show. I chose Sweeney Todd partly because of my interest in the story and the period in which it’s set, but I also wanted to challenge myself as much as possible. Sondheim is known for his complex musical arrangements and the songs in Sweeney Todd are notoriously difficult to perform. While this made the prospect of mixing the show pretty daunting, it was a great opportunity to put everything I learned this year into practice.

In the rehearsal room, I began the process of mentally figuring out how to balance the vocals. There are a lot of overlapping parts, and in fact one of the most taxing moments of the show also ended up being my favourite: ‘Kiss Me (Part II)’, sung by Anthony, Johanna, Judge Turpin and the Beadle. There is so much going on at a fast pace, and you really have to concentrate hard to follow the script. With so many different words being sung at the same time, it’s also really important to make sure each individual character can be heard clearly and that no one is drowned out. In addition, our production had only one male cast member, which meant finding the right balance between three female voices and one male voice (when originally this song would have been sung by three male voices and one female). All of this meant that, when it went right, it was immensely satisfying.

One of the other things that really appealed to me about Sweeney Todd was the news that our musical director would be using an amazing piece of orchestral software called Sinfonia. This allowed him to essentially be a one-man band while conducting the cast, and it was incredible to watch and to mix. It was certainly a challenge I embraced, as I had worked with tracks in QLab on my previous two shows, so it was good to have a different experience.

Another element I really enjoyed was using reverb. I’d done some research on past productions and was fascinated by how Broadway sound designer Nevin Steinberg used reverb creatively. While we obviously didn’t copy this approach, it did give us a few ideas. Our director encouraged us to have fun with reverb for the screams in the more violent scenes, and that’s exactly what we did. One particular scene involving a character being thrown into an oven was really exciting because everything came together so well: the reverb, the lighting and silhouette, the tension in the musical underscore.

That’s ultimately what I’ve loved most about mixing shows this year: the teamwork involved in bringing everything together and creating something that audiences walk out of saying, “That was brilliant.” Of course there were the usual technical difficulties and stresses, but the final show couldn’t have gone better. It was a sell-out audience, my family were there (the first time they’d ever seen one of my shows, which was really special) and everything sounded great and ran unbelievably smoothly (rare but wonderful!). It was an experience I’ll remember for a long time to come.

Article by: Sarah Stacey

SoundGirls

The mission of SoundGirls.org is to inspire and empower the next generation of women in audio. Our mission is to create a supportive community for women in audio and music production, providing the tools, knowledge, and support to further their careers. SoundGirls.Org was formed in 2013 by veteran live sound engineers Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato and operates under the Fiscal Sponsorship of The California Women’s Music Festival, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. In 2012, Karrie and Michelle participated in the “Women of Professional Concert Sound” panel at the AES Conference in San Francisco. The panel was hosted by the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) and moderated by WAM founder Terri Winston. Terri brought together five women working in live and broadcast audio. The groundbreaking panel (which also included Jeri Palumbo, Claudia Engelhart and Deanne Franklin), provided young women and men a glimpse into life on the road, tips and advice, and a Q & A with the panelists. More importantly though, was how incredibly powerful the experience was for the panelists. We had all been in the business for 20 years or more, yet most of us had never met before that day and within minutes we bonded like long-lost sisters. We were struck by how similar our experiences, work ethics, and passions were and wondered why our paths had never crossed and how our careers would have been different had we been there to support each other through the years. Each of us are strong on our own, but together we were even stronger and a powerful force. We were empowered. Each of us had been asked hundreds of times in our careers: Are there other women doing sound? How did you get into sound? How would a young woman go about getting into sound? Through creating SoundGirls.Org, we hope to establish a place for women working in professional audio to come for support and advice, to share our success and failures, our joys and frustrations, and for empowerment and inspiration.